Chronicles of the dead
Chapter 2
Angel followed behind Wesley holding the end of the group while Rander held up the front. What kind of a name was Rander? He thought shaking his head and listening above him. Cordelia and Fred seemed ordinarily afraid Wes seemed fascinated and Gunn just acted like he could have cared less either way.
"So what are you?" Lorne cut in.
"Me?" Rander looked at him. "I'm a dead person."
"Like a zombie?" Fred said her voice squeaking.
"No. Like a dead girl walking around." Rander said looking ahead of her.
"Like a vampire?" Cordy cut in.
"No." She said flatly.
"Like a woman who has been alive for nearly three thousand years." Wesley said to her.
"Like that." She said turning back to him.
"Zthara is it?" He said rudely.
"You pronounced it wrong." She said looking back infront of her.
"How do you know this stuff?" Cordy barked.
"She's history." Angel said slowly stopping fully and making the rest of the group stop. "That's why you're here, you did this."
"You got me!" She barked spinning around. "That's what I'm doing here I'm luring you into a trap of even more zombies then the ones I just saved your ungrateful ass from." She growled the last three words.
"But they said you died." Wesley said slowly.
"Do I look alive to you?" She cried throwing her hands up angrily. "What does my massive life story have to do with any of this?"
"You killed yourself!" Angel cried triumphantly having remembered something.
"I see you morons would rather talk about me then live so let's go I got nothing to lose I'm never dying." She said crossing her arms infront of her small body.
"Angel I want to live." Fred hissed.
"So do I." Lorne said quietly.
"I read about you. You killed yourself when you were cursed with the sight of all of the lives you had taken. You went to hell for your sins but when TarZar couldn't work his business without he brought you back but you had a conscience and a soul." Wesley said reciting the words from his books.
"It's like meeting a celebrity for the geeky." Cordy said shaking her head.
"Yeah so little recap? It's over. Can we please go I have to kill someone." She growled.
"So you're evil?" Gunn asked her.
"Yeah." She said softening slightly. "Who isn't?"
They left it at that and followed her the rest of the way to a large circular hole that was closed off by a large metal disk that wasn't a manhole cover. But before Angel could try to figure out what it was she had crawled up a ladder on the side of the wall then jumped up onto a landing right below the large hole.
"When I push this thing off there is a good chance there are going to be zombies all over the place. The refuge is about thirty feet from where this thing opens so you have to run like hell. I will do what I can to fight them off." She said feeling a slight pull to these people that she didn't like.
They all nodded in unison and began to go up the ladder one by one and jump the foot it was from the ladder to the ledge. She pushed the top off of the hole and pushed herself up. She was right, there was about a hundred or so zombies wobbling around and walking slower then anything but with the power to rip human flesh off and she knew there was little that her new friends could do to stop it.
She threw her hand out knocking one zombie to the ground and then kicking up as Fred came through the hole. Rander screamed for her to run as fast as she could to the large gray building that was once a prison but was now a place for the living to go.
Angel took Rander's side as the zombies circled them. He pressed his back against hers in an attempt to make the space where they could get their flesh ripped off smaller. The feeling of someone actually worrying that much about her as Angel felt at that moment, it radiated off of him, made her feel important for the few seconds before she saw Lorne come out of the hole.
In seconds zombies were on him. She jumped the ten feet and pulled them off of him he was trembling but Rander forced him to run. She turned to the prison and saw Fred and Cordy reaching it all right. Gunn came out of the hole and she yelled for him to make sure they got to safety.
Gunn grabbed Lorne and they ran for it as Wesley came out of the hole with his axe raised and began to chop heads off. Rander felt a sudden jump of fear as Wesley's arm was cut. She ran to him and kicked a zombie in the head knocking its head off of its shoulders. She pushed him towards the prison.
"I want to help." He yelled at her.
"GO." She yelled. "Don't be stupid!"
"How dare you." He called back.
"Angel!" She yelled to Angel. "Come on let's go."
The three of them took off running in the direction of the prison. Rander made sure to stay behind Wesley. Angel was on her side but they were so close. She felt something pull at her arm and in a second her shoulder was pulled out of its socket. She jumped backwards and kicked the zombie in the stomach and with her good arm she punched it I'm the face severing its head from its shoulders.
She ran behind Wesley pulling her arm up so it wouldn't lag her. Wesley reached the base first with Angel right behind him. He yelled something into the box next to them as Angel and Rander turned back to the group of zombies that was advancing.
The door slid open and the three of them ducked inside. It closed just as quickly chopping a zombie in half. The three of them collapsed to the floor. Rander closed her eyes and opened them again. A man was standing over them he nodded softly. Angel stood and pulled Rander to her feet then helped Wesley up as well.
"You finally made it." The man said to Rander.
"You thought I would send all of those guys in and not myself? Yeah." She said knowing she might have if it came down to it.
"We have been waiting for you. And the vampire." He said to her. "Your friends have been put up in the hospital wing for now."
They followed the man out of the entrance and into a large courtyard full of dying or dead grass with men scattered all around. There were zombies attached to large chains that they were trying to kill as if they knew how to fight. They followed him into the large gray building and into a hall that use to be white and was now spattered with red and a tinge of yellow. It smelled like death and pain.
"This is the hospital wing." He said slowly.
They turned down a hall that was white now but lined with tables and chairs probably for visitors when this was a prison. Past that they went into a room that the man had to use to key to get into. There was a white hall that they had to walk through then into a large room that had one massive conference table.
"Is this her?" She turned to see a woman standing at the head of the table, she didn't fit in with the rest of the men because she was clean and she wasn't wearing camouflage.
"Lilah?" Angel said rudely.
"She's evil." Wesley said to them.
"We know." A man at the table said to them.
"So is she." Said Lilah looking at Rander.
"What's the deal? I don't have all day here." Rander said rudely.
"Sit." He said to the three of them.
"Just one second this is bugging me."
She had Angel hold her arm and she shoved her shoulder back into its socket with a sick popping. She sat down in one of the chairs next to Angel with Wesley next to him. She crossed her legs underneath the table and leaned back.
"So Zthara is it?" She said to Rander.
"No one can pronounce it." She replied to Lilah.
"So your Three thousandth birthday is coming up isn't it?" Lilah said smiling at her.
"No it was last year." She said smiling back cruelly. "Damn I really missed the part where this has anything to do with the horde of zombies out there."
"I'm curious to know why you aren't a zombie." She said to her.
"Because I'm already dead moron. I thought you did your work." Rander said rudely.
"That doesn't make you immune to becoming a zombie." She said smiling at her.
"Oh well damn." Rander said rudely. "I'm bored."
"This is the point." She said slowly. "Michael's is running the show and this is why we need you. If you kill him and his stupid little crystal ball then we can all go home happy. But until Wolfram and Hart think this is over then I have to stay here."
"Fine." Rander said standing. "Tell me where he is and how do I get that crystal ball thing."
"It's not that easy hot shot." Lilah said to her. "He's about three miles west of us, somewhere you have never been because there are no sewers that way. He fixed it that way."
Rander felt a slight rush of cold enter her body and then it disappeared she looked down at Angel who was looking up at her and he nodded.
"So the big bad vamp is going to try to take this on? Luckily for you there is this eternal night thing going on as of like half an hour ago." Lilah said looking at her small watch.
"Since neither one of us has to worry about strength I think its smart for us to go alone." Angel said looking at Rander.
"You can't go alone." Wesley said standing.
"We can." Angel said to Wesley slowly. "And we will."
It was over then, the discussion that is. They left the conference room and Lilah and went into the hospital wing to discuss the plans with Cordy, Gunn, Lorne and Fred. They had the same reaction Wesley did but Angel had made his mind up. Although he was far more upset about it then she was.
After they had closed the book on any discussion with the rest of them they went down to the weapons room. Angel settled with two large axes and a sword. Rander went high tech with two large guns and a couple of grenades.
They left the weapons room and went out into the courtyard. They had a detailed map of how to get there and the secret way to get into his mansion. They left the courtyard and in more fear then some people knew they left the base. The door shot open and before they could process a thought that could protest they had run out of the door into the awaiting army of zombies.
